eyko

I don't remember the original Gmail having a rich editor in the compose view (I've been trying to source some screenshots but can't seem to find any with the compose view), but I do remember it being pretty impressive for the time. There definitely were a few libraries pushing the envelope back then.

SproutCore for instance was around in 2006 and Apple built it's first version of MobileMe on it[1]. Prototype.js[2] first came out in 2005. I believe it was Prototype.js that first popularised the dollar sign $() for CSS selectors, or was it cssQuery[3]? Prototype also had Dojo[4] as healthy competition right from the start.

I also remember YUI[5] and its offshot Ext.js[6].

Most will also remember YUI[4] and its offshoot Ext.js[5] 1. https://techcrunch.com/2008/06/09/want-to-try-out-mobileme-c... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype_JavaScript_Framework 3. http://dean.edwards.name/my/cssQuery/ 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dojo_Toolkit 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YUI_Library 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext_JS

Simplifying: contrary to popular (western) opinion, there are countries outside of the US/EU sphere of influence that still trade with Russia, Cuba, etc. And US/EU haven't completely stopped trading with (nor in) Russia.

I don't think this was a possibility that they didn't consider.

Nuclear contamination doesn't tend to stay put and respect borders. Russia knows that, so I don't think Russia would drop a nuke anywhere in their own vicinity.

I don't have any experience with telescopes or satellites but I can imagine that the cost of running a satellite in space is not just the cost of launching it. Everything after that is necessarily more complex and expensive: repairs, corrections of orbit/trajectory, availability windows if it's not geostationary, monitoring, protecting from debris, limited bandwidth, etc.

"Prize-winning poet Shelley Puhak is the author of the new book The Dark Queens, from which this story is adapted."

I don't know if the author is a historian, and she doesn't present herself as one. I'd take that into account when reading the article/story.

I'm from Europe and I don't find unions particularly attractive, especially when they want to function like guilds, as they do in my country. That's basically gatekeeping and they want to have the power to specify salary ranges based on qualifications (e.g. university degrees, certifications, etc). A lot of people in the tech community are self taught and don't always take well to the idea that the only way to prove your worth is with a piece of paper they'd have to pay for.

In my current situation (UK) I have all the benefits you mentioned with none of the drawbacks, especially not the salary $60k salary cap (which I think is a misconception since some jobs I looked at during the whole Brexit fiasco were in Europe and paying closer to €90k).

> In Poland where I'm from you'd get at least 10 different types of normal white flour in every store, based on how finely they are ground and how pure they are(denoted as "type" from 450 to 2000)

Okay that's impressive. I buy my flour from Shipton Mill online[1] because, as you noted, supermarkets only carry commercial flour with very little variety, if any. Worse even, you don't get much information on the packaging about how coarse/fine it is, many times.

Side note: I'm also not originally from the UK and had also noticed the lack of bakeries, or specialist shops here. Even smaller towns have your typical Tesco/Sainsbury and few if any local baker, butcher, etc. Where I'm from, a neighbourhood without a butcher, bakery, fishmonger, etc would be considered a bit strange. I don't know why but it seems like the assassination of British culture is almost complete. I don't know if it was consumers that drove it or if the big supermarkets imposed it. They've made the local merchant almost extinct. And don't get me started on food culture (most brits I know don't regularly prepare their own meals, and when they do, they're rarely traditional home cooking outside of the typical sunday roast with the family, or christmas dinner. It's a sad loss in a way.

1. https://www.shipton-mill.com/flour-direct-shop/flour/organic...

Don't buy your bread from a supermarket (in fact, buy as little as you can from a supermarket). I can't speak for the entire UK, but in London and south east in general (essex, kent), you can find very good sourdough. The UK also has some very good mills and we're spoilt for flour (if you bake at home).

Some would probably call it stigmatising poverty or something along those lines.

But at the same time indistinguishable by their reaction to Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline".

> In Europe, only Denmark and Netherlands have similarly low coverage.

You forgot Iceland, at about 2%.

Never had a chance to try it, but my first reaction to the Hololens announcement was exactly that. Being able to have your physical input devices in view whilst still seeing an overlay of your screen. It's prohibitively expensive though.

I was mainly thinking in the difference between an atom in laboratory conditions being observed in a very controlled way, vs an atom at the core of a protostar, for instance, but that's an interesting point, thanks!

> What are we gonna do then? Rediscover local journalism?

We're probably already in the first stages of that journey, complete with the unreliability and all.

I'm not convinced that comparing two different states of matter is a useful comparison. The universe doesn't necessarily work differently, we're just observing different phenomena, aren't we? The behaviour of an atom or subatomic particles in isolation is not necessarily the behaviour of the same particles when part of a much larger system.

Could one could also argue that quantum indeterminacy makes it difficult make predictions the more interactions you add to a system? That is, interactions at the atomic and subatomic levels are manageable enough to observe, but as we add actors, the interactions grow exponentially, and each actor's state is influenced not just by itself but by other actors in the system, ad infinitum.

Cheap android phones with decent cameras and expandable storage (microSD).

Edit: I'm obviously oversimplifying, but most of the world doesn't have always-on data connections (e.g. rural areas) and manufacturers outside of silicon valley do optimise for people that may want to download media so the can view/listen when they're not connected. Nothing beats a cheap phone replaceable battery and storage.

The EU capped intra-EU calls and SMS prices a few years ago: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/intra-eu-c...

Perhaps too little too late since everyone now uses messaging apps for practically no cost.

I used to think so as well, but someone pointed out to me that Germany has a similar % of public sector jobs as the USA, and Spain is not that much higher, and all seem to be shrinking. Belgium on the other hand seems to be stable at 21% (21.5% 2013, 21.1% 2019) so it would seem to fit the hypothesis :-). I still think that it's a contributing factor, but perhaps it's more of a symptom and less of a factor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_se...

You can't paint all of Europe with the same brush, and whilst most of Europe may be in the single market, they're not the "same" market. In my experience, there is a high variance amongst European countries (Eurozone or not) in risk-aversion vs risk-tolerance, which seems to be echoed in some studies/observations[1]. I've never really been able to see what the main factors that determine this may be -- I used to think it was correlated to how much each country participates in the global economy, but that would explain UK and Spain, but not Germany.

I also find it a bit narrow-minded to think of Europe as risk-averse simply by judging their attitudes towards tech investments. Spain (where I'm from) definitely appears to be one of the most risk-tolerant EU countries when you look at certain sectors and our foreign investments in infrastructure and other types of construction, but one of the most risk-averse when it comes to tech. If I were to speculate (and I stress, speculate), it seems to be influenced by the type of markets with capital that we have access to: the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. This is also the case when you think of partially publicly funded projects that are quite risky -- especially in countries that are politically unstable like ours. A perfect example would be renewable energies, which would have been the great success story in Spain until new legislation practically killed any hopes of it being eventually profitable.

Germany, on the other hand, seems risk-averse _even_ within their own main domains (industrial engineering, automotive, etc). They also have a big global presence and prestige/reputation, but I have never lived or worked in Germany so I wouldn't even dare speculate why this is the case. I've often seen the finger pointed at bureaucracy, but other countries with similar levels of bureaucracy and hurdles don't seem to be as risk-averse. Different cultures, I reckon.

The UK (where I now live) on the other hand was one of the most risk-tolerant countries in the EU (until their departure) when you think of tech investments. The fact that they speak in English and have a strong services economy helps in that respect, I would guess. I'm definitely not an expert.

1. https://voxeu.org/article/cross-country-differences-risk-att...

Veritasium did a video on the Blackbird (plus a bet to prove it does indeed work). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyQwgBAaBag

Of all the boroughs I've lived in, in London, the East Village (a.k.a. Olympic village) and the adjacent Queen Elizabeth Park is by far my favourite, and it's still improving. It has also had an impact on the surrounding areas which, negative in terms of gentrification and ridiculous house prices, but very positive in terms of the flourishing local economy and community.

Construction doesn't pay that well in most parts of the world.

Who pays for the interesting structures, ponds, waterfalls, and arenas? It ultimately always boils down to where does the money come from -- think of "data organising" as the circulatory system of an extremely complex, multi layered, and global economy. It's not the most efficient and a lot of people learn to live in the cracks getting paid for doing virtually nothing, but it's necessary if we want to continue to create.

Also: if people were interested in endless artificial ponds, waterfalls, and interesting structures, and there was any money to be made in it (vs the cost of building them), there would probably be a market for it. I suspect not many people are interested, and they'd rather protect what nature already has.

TIL! So many (most?) christian names have hebrew origins so it's just great to see how much hebrew pronounciation has been completely violated to create words that sometimes barely resemble the original.

You're right! Most castellano speakers don't make a distinction between /b/ and /v/. Some latin american countries do make the distinction and also some spanish regions, like catalan/valenciano speakers in certain regions have a stronger or softer, yet still distinct /v/ sound, such as in "a veure, Vicent" (let's see, Vincent).

Most people pronounce the spanish Vicente as "Beethenteh" in castellano but you can definitely ignore the "th" sound and pronounce it like an S, it's your name after all, you make the rules! In some spanish languages there's no "th" sound (e.g. Catalan) so it's really not an issue.

It will definitely be much easier for spaniards to pronounce the english version of Vincent than the french. We probably have the worst french pronounciation in Europe despite the fact that we're neighbours! I always chuckle with how some people pronounce croissant: "curasan" (an attempt to transliterate as "cruasan", I believe).

Another interesting one: James and Jacob are the same name (from the Hebrew Yaʿqob), and in spanish it's either found as "Jaime", "Jacobo" or "Santiago" which comes from "Saint Iago" (Iago being an old spanish conversion of the Latin "Iacobus" which came to other romance languages as Yago, Iaco, Jacob, Yacobo, Jacobo etc).

The "J" consonant leads to many interesting things because of how many pronounciations it has. It can be an english "J" or the softer latin "J" (identical to an I) or an in between Y which could be between an english J and SH. In current spanish, however, the J is pronounced as the "voiceless velar fricative"[1] (a very strong H?), so whilst the name started sounding like "Iacobo", it's now a very firm HHakobo.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fricative

Same boat here. Vicente in Spanish so I go by Vincent most of the time (either the english or the French pronounciations, I don't care). Most people see my name in Spanish and pronounce it like it was Italian ("Vinchente", they always add an N). I've never been bothered by it one bit, at least they tried. For the curious, the correct pronounciation is either "Vee-sen-teh" or with the spanish voiceless-dental-fricative θ[1] "Vee-θen-teh".

If you ever bought into this idea that mispronouncing someone's unfamiliar/foreign name is somehow rude or racist or an extension of white supremacy/privilege, you should see how english names and surnames are pronounced in non-english speaking countries. People give it their best shot and fail, that's all there is to it.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_dental_fricative

The evolution of cuisines in recent history bares no resemblance to the evolution of cuisines in the late bronze Age to the late antiquity. For one, information was slow to travel, and influences were much further away, and besides that, most agriculture was subsistence farming: families owned land just about enough to feed themselves and sell a bit of surplus, if nothing went wrong). Recipes were passed down generations before any changes would be made by the introduction of new ingredients to the local agriculture. Most families lived on the same ingredients for their entire lives so things were a bit more stagnant than you'd imagine if you're taking recent history as your benchmark.